It was only a matter of time before Michael Jackson’s estate started hyping unreleased material in the wake of the singer’s death.

And sure enough, 109 days after the King of Pop’s passing, his new song “This Is It” appeared online.

Were Jackson still alive, “This Is It” — the song, not the movie that screens tonight — would be a B-side at best. With throwback vocals by Jackson’s brothers and a soul guitar reminiscent of Jackson’s hit “Human Nature,” the catchy “This Is It” relies more on nostalgia than musicality. Jackson was a notorious control freak when it came to his music, and it’s hard to imagine this subpar ballad making his final cut.

The same is likely true of the movie, which captures Jackson preparing the music and moves for a series of planned concerts in London, a comeback of sorts, cut short by his unexpected death June 25. Even if it pleases Jackson fans, they’ll still be asking themselves: Would Michael approve? Would it be good enough for him?

But given the tragicomic fallout that followed the singer’s death, from father Joe Jackson’s self-promotional moves to the family’s odd craving for mourning en masse, it’s impossible to be surprised at the song’s, or the movie’s, speedy arrival.

Especially because this isn’t it. “This Is It” is a mediocre beacon signaling the inevitable onslaught of “new” Jackson material we’ll see over the next decade.

It’s hardly a new trend. Beatles die-hards and Elvis fans can attest to the lengths a label, estate or corporation will go to in search of another million records sold. (As historic as the recent Beatles stereo and mono rereleases were, they are an extension of corporate greed.) And it’s the same with their fallen modern companions, from Nirvana to Tupac Shakur.

Some groups are more cruel than others. Kurt Cobain died in 1994, but the main releases that have followed are the ones you would expect: Live discs, rereleases, a box set. Shakur died in 1996 as his double-album masterpiece, “All Eyes on Me,” was reigning on the charts — and yet his discography contains nearly 20 authorized and unauthorized CD releases that followed.

Adding insult to injury, some of the recent Shakur titles include “Resurrection” and “The Way He Wanted It.”

Really? If we’ve learned anything, we’ll expect the Jackson camp to pull out the same stops — in the name of the fans, of course. And some fans will live for this new material. “This Is It” will become their new mantra, and the low-key demos on the two-CD set “This Is It” — of “She’s Out of My Life” and “Beat It” — will enrich their lives.

But this façade of servicing the fans is a cheap charade, and hopefully record buyers will catch on.

When the Jacksons dug around their departed brother’s studio and found an unfinished demo called “This Is It,” they hurried it into production as a tribute. But is it really a tribute when the act is more self-serving than memorializing?

Some fans cheered when the Jacksons were forced, in a very public forum, to give co-writing credit to Canadian singer Paul Anka a couple of weeks ago. Not only did Anka co-write the song with Jackson in 1983, but it had also previously been recorded and released by R&B artist Safire in 1991 — under a different name, “I Never Heard,” a track that is enjoying something of a renaissance on YouTube.

The Jackson camp took a step back after realizing its blunder, and then came out crediting Anka and promising him royalties on the song. That’s hardly a tribute to a pop star who had retreated into a shroud of self-dictated privacy in the last decade of his life. But it’s what we’ve come to expect.

“THIS IS IT.”

Ricardo Baca is the editor of The Cannabist. After 12 years as The Denver Post's music critic and a couple more as the paper's entertainment editor, he was tapped to become The Post's first ever marijuana editor and create The Cannabist in late-2013. Baca also founded music blog Reverb and co-founded music festival The UMS.